A GEEK DADDY: Sharing a dad's adventures in parenting plus enjoying the geeky side of life

Sunday, October 4, 2015

Family Game Night: CHRONO BOMB!

** A Geek Daddy received a complimentary Chrono Bomb! game courtesy of Patch Products for this review **

Now that school's back in session for our kids, we're getting back into the routine of making Friday's a FAMILY FUN NIGHT where we either spend the evening playing games or watching a movie together. It's a time devoted to chilling out from the stresses of the week and to enjoy some bonding time together. For our first Family Fun Night of the school year, we had a fun secret agent themed time playing the game Chrono Bomb! from Patch Products and watched the movie Spy Kids for a good time.

Chrono Bomb! is a gamewhere you have to make your way through a "laser field" to defuse a bomb before its timer ticks down to zero and goes boom! You create the laser field using 27.5-feet of string weaving it through clamps to create an obstacle course to crawl and hurdle through to get to the bomb. In addition to the timer clicking down, if you bump against the string once or twice it knocks off more time from the clock and a third time sets off the bomb - kaboom! Race through the maze without setting off the bomb to see who can defuse it the quickest.

For some extra challenge to the game you can mix in some playing cards to the course. Picking up the cards spread throughout the laser field before you are allowed to defuse the bomb can add another level of difficulty to the game. There is also a free app that can be used with playing the game to provide some interesting twists to the action.

While the game may look a bit tricky to put together it really was easy to assemble. Place the included clamps around your designated play space, roll out the string through an easy to use spinner device, which makes it easy for both laying out your laser field maze and putting it away, and throw three AAA batteries in the bomb to activate the timer and you are ready to go. The sensor that connects the string to the bomb's timer worked really well for us and my kids were frequently frustrated when they brushed up against a string and the timer sped up or the bomb blew up...which is a big part of the fun of the game! Knowing that touching the string would really impact the game really added to the thrill level of Chrono Bomb! and kept the kids honest about how they approached going through the maze.

Chrono Bomb! brought out our inner 007 in this secret agent themed game. It was a nice change of pace to spend the evening playing something different from a board game or video game during our Family Fun Night. It was pretty funny to see some of the positions and moves players have to distort themselves in to get through the maze. Plus it got to be pretty competitive going head to head racing to get the best times. I have to say my kid's size was an advantage in crawling through and slipping around the "laser beams" and my daughter ended up the Chrono Bomb! champion for the night.

This game gets A Geek Daddy nod of approval because it has players both engage in aerobic feats and focus on thinking about how they are going to accomplish a task. It is something unique to play that can easily be set up inside and entertains kids while keeping them active. Chrono Bomb! is perfect for keeping kids amused on a rainy day, having their friends over on a winter afternoon or enjoying time together on a family fun night. Play over and over again by constantly building new courses to challenge players to achieve the best time.